Two Colby College residence halls built in the early 1950s and renovated in 2008 received LEED Gold Certification from the United States Green Building Council, the College announced August 17. Colby now has more LEED-certified buildings than any private college in Maine and is the first private college in Maine to achieve the gold level. Pierce and Perkins-Wilson, which were once fraternity houses, are now more energy efficient and include local, recycled and sustainably harvested materials.

College Launches Blog to Foster Discussion on News Literacy, the Decline of Newspapers and Rise of New MediaA blog to promote news literacy, written by current and former members of the media, launched July 8 through the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College.The Lovejoy Journalism and News Literacy Blog taps such experts as NPR's Chris Arnold and longtime New York Times reporter Felicity Barringer to educate the next generation of our nation's leaders on current and ever-changing issues in the media.

The Atlantic Music Festival, a month-long celebration of the world's finest classical music, performed by stellar young musicians, will take place at Colby College for the first time this year. The 15-concert season opens July 4. Below is a list of concerts, all of which are free. More information about the calendar and the festival is available at www.atlanticmusicfestival.org.

Two grassroots crusaders for education will speak at Colby College's 188th Commencement ceremonies Sunday, May 24 at 10 a.m. on the Miller Library lawn. Greg Mortenson, coauthor of the bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace. . . One School at a Time, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree. Qiamuddin Amiry '09 of Kabul, Afghanistan, was elected by his class to deliver the student address. The public is invited.

A museum-wide exhibit, Art at Colby: Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Colby College Museum of Art, will be on view July 11, 2009, to February 21, 2010, to mark the founding of the museum in 1959, a half century ago. A 376-page book of the same title, featuring 202 color illustrations, will be published to accompany the exhibition.

A project that expanded Colby College's Cotter Union by 18,000 square feet with the additions of Pulver Pavilion and a new bookstore was LEED certified at the silver level by the U.S. Green Building Council, college officials announced May 1. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the accepted national standard for rating green or sustainable building construction, and silver is a notch above basic LEED certification.

More than 500 students will present more than 300 research projects at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Colby College, April 29-May 1. To mark the 10th anniversary, this year's celebration of scholarship will highlight the work of three student-professor research collaborations in the keynote address, Wednesday, April 29, at 7:30 p.m. in Ostrove Auditorium, Diamond Building. For the first time, this year's symposium will include a New Play Festival, with plays written, directed and produced by Colby students.

The Colby College Museum of Art announces the launch of its new Web Kiosk, a searchable online database. The kiosk features information about more than 6,000 objects from the permanent collection, almost 2,500 of which include digital images. Highlights include the majority of works from The Alex Katz Collection, The Lunder Collection (including the Whistler and Colville Collections), The John Marin Collection and the Terry Winters Collection.

For the second consecutive year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named Colby College the Individual Conference Champion for purchasing more green power than any other school in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). EPA has been tracking green power purchasing among collegiate athletic conferences through its 2008-09 College & University Green Power Challenge.

Colby College President William D. Adams will hold a public forum tonight, Wednesday, April 15, at 8 p.m., regarding the events of Sunday, April 12, that resulted in the arrests of two students. The forum will take place at the Alfond Rink in Colby's Alfond Athletic Center.

An international conference about the history of climate change -- the first of its kind -- will take place at Colby College April 1-4. Historians of science and technology and affiliated scholars from around the world will convene in Waterville, Maine, and the public is invited to attend.

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, will speak at Colby College on Friday, March 6, at 7 p.m. The event, in Page Commons, Cotter Union, is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture, at which time Ensler's works will be available for purchase.

As part of its ongoing series, the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College is offering two free seminars for the spring semester. Seminars are taught by retired Colby professors and are open to all members of the local community.